AL Central Notes: Holland, Twins, White Sox, Hahn, Tigers

The Twins will have representatives at Greg Holland’s showcase tomorrow, 1500 ESPN’s Darren Wolfson reports (Twitter link). The Giants, Rangers, Yankees and Red Sox will also have scouts on hand at Holland’s showcase, while the Royals are also known to have interest in a reunion with their former closer and will probably also have personnel on hand. Holland missed all of 2016 recovering from Tommy John surgery, though he is already drawing a lot of attention from both contenders and rebuilding clubs like Minnesota as an intriguing bounce-back candidate.

The Twins are expected to heavily expand the baseball operations department under Derek Falvey and Thad Levine, La Velle E. Neal III of the Minneapolis Star Tribune writes. Minnesota had just 15 people working in baseball ops last year, as per the team’s press guide, while other teams had almost twice as many personnel working in a wide variety of roles. As you might expect given Falvey and Levine’s background with modern statistical analysis, the Twins’ analytics department is expected to receive particular attention.

“White Sox GM Rick Hahn is open for business on just about his entire roster,” more than one general manager tells Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe. As MLBTR’s Tim Dierkes noted in his recent Offseason Outlook piece about the Sox, the looming question over Chicago’s winter plans is whether the team intends to rebuild or try to contend in 2017, and Cafardo’s news would seem to hint at the former.

With the Tigerslooking to curb their free-spending ways, Fangraphs’ Craig Edwards explores the possibility of the team dealing Miguel Cabrera and Justin Verlander in a single blockbuster trade. This would allow the Tigers to reload on both payroll space and prospects for a quick return to contention by as soon as 2018. Assuming Verlander is willing to waive his no-trade protection, he’d get a lot of attention from other teams even with his big price tag ($84MM through 2019 and a $22MM vesting option for 2020) since starting pitching is so scarce this winter. As for Cabrera, who is coming off another tremendous season and is owed $220MM through 2023, Edwards writes that “the length of his contract means his trade value will never be higher than it is right now. Indeed, as soon as next season, he might be untradeable.” It’s a short list, of course, of teams that could afford to absorb Verlander and Cabrera’s deals even if Detroit kicked in some money; Edwards suggests that the Red Sox, Mariners, Rangers or Yankees could be fits.

Baseball doesn’t need a salary cap a floor sure. Part of the reason they don’t have a salary cap is revenue sharing. And I can guarantee owners won’t be willing to continue sacrifice their media earnings to be saddle with a salary cap. Part of the appeal of baseball is the ability to lock up your home grown players. And there is a soft cap in baseball it’s the luxury threshold. There are so many revenue flowing avenues for smaller clubs. Nothing like continuing to put money into the hands of billionaires. How about we actually tax the Lorias etc… for habitually hoarding it and not spending the 30-50mill they receive annually.

Oh and if the MLB PA folds on that issue you’d have to give something on the backend and I can all but guess owners being responsible for paying minor leaguers an actual live able wage or hey even minimum wage. Which I can guarantee you owners definitely do not want to do.

If the owners paid minor leaguers minimum wage, which is different in each state, there would be a severe cut-down on teams. It would become NBA’s D-League where teams might have one minor team and would have to financially own them, instead of simply having a contractual agreement.

You get to a good point, it’s really not PLAYERS that are going to feel a proper salary cap/floor, it’s a minority of OWNERS who try to (often successfully) purchase World Series rings that won’t be able to outmuscle two thirds of the league every year if we had a fair system.

Considering the weak free agent market and Verlander’s pedigree (a #1/2 pitcher), I think the Yankees would need to offer up more. Tigers don’t need McCann or Headley so I doubt they’d take them unless they were getting something more back. Gardner makes sense, but him and two prospects isn’t getting it done. Yanks would have to give up one of their pitching prospects (I imagine Severino or Tate), plus 2 of the above prospects you listed, Gardner, and maybe another contract the Yankees wouldn’t mind getting rid of.

Agreed, the Dodgers would be one of the most logical destinations for a blockbuster including Verlander and Cabrera. The Yankees are trying to get away from large commitments to aging players so I seriously doubt they’d be an option like Edwards suggested

Baseball needing a salary cap is rediculous. The money is there why should the owners be getting it. Stop looking at baseball players as baseball players and start looking at them on the level of entertainers.

If Carfado is right about Hahn and the WSox, the rebuild could be quick. Sale ( 3yrs control for $38 mil) and Quintana ( 4yrs control $35.35 mil) would bring a haul, not to mention Frazier and Aubreu if they wanted too. Rebuild won’t be easy to swallow but I think most WSox fans would welcome it. This KW plan of going for it every year has been an absolute failure, so unless Reinsdorf wants to push the payroll past $150-160 mil, there’s no plan to compete this year or next.

Completely agree, they have such good assets that they could be competitive in 2 years with the returns that they get. Sox fans will accept a rebuild at this point unless they are willing to go after the best free agents. If they sign mediocre players then it will be a repeat of the last 3 years.

Just remember the last time they dealt for a young talent, they got Avisail Garcia. Any team will be successful trading for young talent, if they work out. Just remember, there’s no guarantee that they will work out.

I think they could compete quickly after a rebuild. If they are offering players like Sale, Quintana, and Eaton then I would think packages like Urias/Bellinger and Rodriguez/Benintendi are on the table with room to still negotiate for more. Add in trades for Abreu, Frazier, Jones, and others then Sox could be looking at a top 5 farm system if they desire.

Sign some stopgap options with intent to move at the deadline and reload this system!

You do not trade Quintana or Sale with this current organization. They have proven time and time they are inept, namely KW. If KW is there when they are trading those two they will get back mediocre players and magic beans for them. The Sox need a new owner who cares as much about winning as he does about the checks rolling in.

With the Mariner’s sitting at about $ 130 Million in salary right now, I don’t see them adding 60.. Even if, big if, Detroit ate half that, the Mariner’s are not deep enough in prospects to pull that off.

The Yankees should not reverse course by making a Verlander/Cabera trade. They have already seen the limitations of spending enormous amounts of money on 30+ years of age players. And having to give back a lot of young talent on top of that makes no sense. This doesn’t mean Verlander and Cabrera aren’t terrific, but for the Yankees it would be a mistake.

.I realize it’s the slow season right now and you have to scrape for baseball news, but the notion that Detroit would trade either Verlander and/or Cabrera is a bit much, especially when they dig all the way to FanGraphics to find an obscure fantasy writer’s tin foil hat opinion. I suppose that we’ll now be reading about possible trades from a conspiracy theory website. If you want to preserve your credibility, stick to reality.

I can do without the condescension based on a false assumption that we should all rely on ESPN, but regardless, I’ve been a member of FanGraphics for over four years and my comment had nothing to do with it’s method of analysis or it’s credibility. (If you re-read my comment, you’ll notice that I didn’t say FanGraphics was “obscure”, just the author of the “analysis”) I was simply pointing out how ludicrous it was to do an analysis on the trade value of two players who weren’t going anywhere, and I stand by my point that Craig Edwards is indeed an obscure fantasy writer as is the case with virtually everyone at FanGraphics, including myself.

The thought that any one team would take on both Cabrera’s and Verlander’s salary is unrealistic. The only way it could possibly work is if the Tigers were taking high salary players back in trade, and that would not get them younger. Might as well just keep them (since they have full no trade clauses anyway). Verlander could be a Cy Young contender again, and if healthy, Cabrera could be an MVP candidate. Not trading them isn’t really a problem.

Dear God,
Please let Rick Hahn be in charge of any returns on all trades for the White Sox, and let Kenny Williams find employment elsewhere (preferably in the AL Central). I cannot stand the thought of his fingerprints being all over trading away Quintana and Sale for packages headlined by Puig and JBJ.